


Under My Skin

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 12:57:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	Under My Skin

Under My Skin

_Louis never knows what he wants and he never says what he means. But there’s something about him that Harry can’t quit—something about Louis that’s so addicting. Harry can’t help but wonder how he let Louis under his skin._

 

\---

 

The bonfire gives Harry certain warmth he hasn’t felt in a long time. It ends the numbness from the tips of his fingers, it wraps around his shoulders like a fleece blanket, and it stops the sharp teeth that belong to the December wind that nip at his cheeks. Maybe the bonfire and its’ warmth had help from the six Coronas he drank, all lined up neatly in a row in the sand next to his sitting log, because the pit of his stomach and the low of his throat both feel warm and fuzzy, like a long, woven scarf.

But Harry would be lying to himself, because he knows the bonfire with it’s _redyellowblue_ flames and the Mexican beers have nothing to do with the warmth that does summersaults in his body; the electricity that can be felt from the tips of his toenails to the ends of his eyelashes. It’s because of some guy, some boy, some _person_ he has never spoken to before in his life.

And Harry thinks that the fuzziness, the sparks, the static, the fucking _warmth_ that is caused by someone he didn’t even know existed until nine (yes, nine) days ago when that said stranger ran into him in the corridor and just looked back with a quick smile and a mumbled _sorry!_ , is just honestly, well—stupid.

So he sits on a bumpy log (that is succeeding in making his bum ache, which is sadly, the first time it will ache in a long time, since he’s going through what his friends jokingly call a _dry spell)_ drinking his seventh, sad, balmy beer, not minding his mates as they laugh at something that Harry’s _sure_ he, too, would be laughing at if he wasn’t so... What’s the word?

Infatuated? Smitten? Besotted? Fixated? Engrossed, hooked, absorbed, _headoverheelsinlove_?

Harry’s not stupid. He’s smart, smart in many ways. Sure, he’ll solve trigonometry problems in seconds, and yeah, Harry’s been able to read Macbeth and Hamlet (he found Romeo and Juliet to be the pits) since he was nine, and so maybe he skipped a couple grades as a child, causing him to graduate and head off to uni earlier than planned.

Things have always just been easy for him to understand. Things just _click_ for Harry.

But he doesn’t understand this. This doesn’t _click_ in his child prodigy mind. He can’t seem to wrap his head around the way his heart seemed to want to _thump thump thump_ out and fly away with the swallows tattooed on his chest when he first made contact with a pair of eyes the colour of the Caribbean Sea. And what the fuck was with the little tickle he felt at the high of his spine that made him shiver and get goose bumps when he heard that Yorkshire mumble?

He feels a sharp nudge on his arm and his eyes flash away from where they were staring intently at the fire, his whole self lost in thoughts of a boy who is merely twenty feet away and without a clue of the turmoil that is currently Harry.

“Mate, I’ve been callin’ ya for the last, I don’t know, decade.” Nialls’ laugh is loud and obnoxious, but one of Harry’s favourite sounds, and he smiles back because this is _Niall_ _Horan_ , and it’s impossible not to smile back. The fire and its _redyellowblue_ flames mirror on the Irish boys’ hair, making it glow like a fucking star, because yeah, it’s that bright and yellow-white, and it’s just absolutely Niall and anything else would be just wrong.

Sitting besides Niall is Liam. Liam with his small, brown quiff (his looking mighty miniature compared to Nialls’ glowing mountain and the sharp, piecey one owned by the boy with the Caribbean eyes and smooth, melted caramel skin and —what the fuck is with all the quiffs?), his always furrowed eyebrows, and that creepy, _knowing_ look.

The look that Harry always dreaded because it meant that Liam knew something Harry didn’t—like when Harry forgot to pay his phone bill and it got cut off, or when Anne got in a car accident and his sister couldn’t reach him, so Liam was called to deliver the bad news and he showed up at Harrys’ dorm; worry lines set deep on his forehead, his mouth turned down into an odd grimace, yet pitiful smile.

The fire flickers in Liam’s eyes so that they’re melted chocolate, and he tightens his grip around his beer with white-gloved hands, just watching drunken teenagers dance on the other side of the fire. He slowly sings along to the song that has Niall placing his beer can in the sand and picking up his guitar for, a small cloud of cold forming before his lips.

Harry stares at quick, pale fingers that strum a beaten up guitar and—

“Louis.”

What?

“What?” Nialls’ eyebrows go up, but his fingers never stop moving against his guitar, even as his head goes back and forth between his two best mates.

“His name is Louis Tomlinson,” Liam meets Harry’s confused eyes. “He’s in the year above yours. I’m in his physiology course.” 

Louis Tomlinson.

Harry doesn’t think any other name in the world sounds more perfect than _Louis Tomlinson_. He fights with his brain, but his eyes nonetheless go to the man, to _Louis_ , to the one who’s been causing chaos in Harry’s mind, and messing with his fucking _emotions_. And he sits only eight nameless bodies away from Harry, all in a circle, so he has a perfect view of this _Louis_ , who sits comfortably on the sand, the flames flickering and reflecting off his amused face with a Heineken in his right grip.

No, Harry wouldn’t ever admit it, but yeah, he’s been _kinda_ wondering what his name was and his age, and where he’s from and _whowhywhenwherehow_.

“Louis Tomlinson,” and yes, Harry’s a hundred and ten percent positive that no other name has ever rolled off so smoothly, so clean, so _precise_ off his tongue. He still doesn’t understand how Liam—“How did you know? I mean, I never said anything, did I?”

Liam just chuckles, mindlessly picking off the label of a now empty beer bottle, eyes dancing along with the beat of the flames. “You’re an open book, Styles. The way everything in you lights up when Louis Tomlinson walks into the canteenis a bit of a clue.”

A burst of sudden laughter comes from Niall, his eyes squint and his body shakes. Nialls’ got one of those brilliant, open-mouth laughs that makes even the most scornful man in the world crack a smile. His perfect teeth gleam against the light and he drops his guitar in the sand with a small thud because the blond fucker is laughing too hard at what Harry thinks is _not even remotely funny, you fucking arse!_ and Niall ends up with his back against the cold, December sand, jean-clad legs hanging off the log.

Harry thinks they’ve all had too much to drink, that Niall is an absolute wanker, and that, _maybe_ , out of the corner of his eye, _Louis Tomlinson_ looked their way more than once with perfectly sculpted raised brows and a thin, pink smirk.

Maybe.

 

 

 

\---

“He’s starring, again.”

Louis only nods, bringing his World History textbook closer to his face; a bad attempt at hiding the pink rose-petal colour creeping upon his face. He’s lying on his stomach, thick books with yellowing pages spread around him across the dusty carpet of the uni library. But all he can think about is a boy who, _obviously_ , has a very clear thing for him. No, Louis is not flattered, if anything, a bit creeped out by the large mint eyes and pouty lips the colour of expensive French lipstick. _If anything_ , Louis thinks, _definitely not flattered. At all._

Zayn stares back, “Who the hell is he anyway, Lou?”

Louis just shrugs, because _why the fuck should I know?_

Zayn looks strange, leaning back against a tables’ leg, surrounded by high book shelves and, well, books. Louis can only bet he looks out of place, too, sprawled across the floor instead of sitting nice and quiet at one of the tables like the rest of students trying to cram hard at last minute.  Like the boy with the chocolate waves and the minty green eyes and the tattoos, all of those tattoos.

“You wanna shag him?” Zayn has always been blunt—straight to the point. _Too fucking honest_ , Louis believes. Because who wants to hear _Yes, Louis, that shirt does make you look_ _heavy_? But Zayn has also always been a loyal best mate, even with his cynical words, his judgemental eyes the colour of dark honey, and his stupid— _meaningful—_ tattoos. (Louis still can’t understand the deep meaning behind _ZAP!_ , but to each his own, right?) 


End file.
